


Prehistoric White Collar AU: Paleolithic Cave Painters

by Sholio



Series: Prehistoric White Collar AUs [2]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prehistoric, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one in which they are cave painters. Less weird than the previous one, I suppose. These fics all stand alone and do not have to be read in any particular order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prehistoric White Collar AU: Paleolithic Cave Painters

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to use their real (modern-day) names to make it less confusing. It's not like these fics are models of archaeological accuracy anyway.

After a summer traveling and hunting on the plains, it was nice to see the winter caves again. Peter enjoyed the solitude of summer, when everyone split up into small bands and went out to the rich summer hunting grounds. But winter was also nice. It would be good to stay in one place for a while and to see more faces than just the two families that he and El had joined for this summer's wandering. They'd reunite with friends and relatives, see who'd hooked up over the summer, who had new babies, who had died; see if any new bands had wandered into the area this summer, because it was always nice to see someone new.

There was one person he was looking forward to seeing in particular, and he knew El felt the same.

"Do you think he's here?" she asked, echoing his thoughts.

"Probably not. It's early in the year, after all." There were only a few trickles of smoke drifting up from various points along the ridge: bands who happened to be in the area early, as theirs was, or people who'd decided to summer near the winter campsite -- there were always a few who did that, especially if they had sick or elderly relatives to care for.

And Neal was hard to predict, anyway. He rarely joined a summer hunting band, preferring instead to wander around on his own. Some years he stayed in the cave system all summer. Sometimes he never showed up at all; Peter, of course, would spend most of the winter worrying, only to have Neal show up in the time of deepest snow and cold, or come back cheerfully in the spring after having wintered over with another group somewhere else.

So he didn't get his hopes up, but then there was a delighted cry from the hillside above them, and Neal came bounding down in a shower of rocks. He hugged El, hugged Peter, and then hugged El again.

"You're back early!" Neal said. "That's great! Come on up, come see what I've made and tell me about where you've been."

Despite his boundless energy, Peter couldn't help noticing that Neal was very thin, almost starved-looking. That wasn't terribly unusual. Since he didn't usually join one of the hunting bands, Neal had to provide for himself, and while he wasn't bad at it, he tended to get lost in his art for days. And it was easy for one man, alone, to have bad luck at hunting or difficulty finding enough edible plants. It would have been easier on him if he'd had a mate, but so far he'd shown no signs of settling down with anyone -- not that he was unpopular with women; there were several children running around with Neal's dark curls and brilliant, mischievous grin. Neal doted on them when they happened to be around, but didn't seem interested in pursuing a permanent attachment to their mothers, most of whom had hooked up with someone else anyway.

Well, they'd have all winter to get him back in good health. Peter hadn't realized how tense he'd been until seeing Neal; then something deep inside him relaxed. A lot of things could happen over the summer, especially to someone who lived alone.

"I made you something," El said, fumbling under her fur cape as they climbed the hill toward the caves. "Here." She found what she was looking for and handed it over.

Peter had watched her make it during long nights around the communal campfire. It was a little horse carved from mammoth ivory, exquisitely detailed.

Neal looked flattered and delighted. "Oh, that's wonderful." He cradled it in his palm, held it up to see the details. "It's beautiful. That uplifted leg -- and how did you do the etching on the mane? Such delicate work."

El immediately started telling him about a technique she was experimenting with, clamping the sculpture between two pieces of wood and binding it with leather to hold the slippery ivory steady. And that was it, they were off, talking about artistic techniques. Peter strolled up the path behind them, having nothing to contribute but entertained by their chatter all the same.

Then they came around a bend in the path and he stopped, his mouth dropping open. There above him, on an exposed rock face he'd walked by a hundred times, was a whole herd of bison -- nearly life-sized, some of them, painted in red and black. Their movements were so lively that they seemed almost to be real.

El was gazing in wonder, too. Neal grinned at the looks on their faces, bouncing on his toes.

"How did you get up there?" Peter asked, stepping back to take a better look. The bison were the most dramatic element, but there were other things to see, too: some horses, a few deer, a small school of fish down at the corner, a hare peeking out of a crack in the rock. Like most of Neal's art, you could look and look, and always find new things to discover.

"Climbed," Neal said nonchalantly, as if clinging to a nearly vertical rock face with a pot of paint was something people did every day. 

Peter sputtered for a moment. "You could have been killed!"

"I was careful," Neal said. He pointed. "See that bulge in the rock, there?" It had been used to produce a rounded effect on the biggest, most lifelike of the bison. "That's what gave me the idea. It was there in the rock; I think I was supposed to bring it out. The rain and snow will wash the paint away and everything will be gone by spring. But _we'll_ know it was there."

El and Peter dropped their travel bundles and admired it for a little while, oohing and aahing as they discovered each new creature. Neal happily basked in the praise, rubbing the little horse lightly with his thumb.

"You must be tired," he said finally. "Come on up and get something to eat. Do you know where you want to stay?"

Since there was almost no one back yet, they'd have their choice of locations. "We don't need to choose tonight," El said. "Where are you living?"

Neal pointed up.

"Of course you are," Peter sighed. In his opinion, the high caves were an annoying pain to get to, but Neal really liked it up there. The view was gorgeous, Peter had to admit, but it was hardly worth the hassle of carrying everything up so high. And he didn't relish a climb after walking all day.

But Neal was off, scrambling up the hill like a squirrel, so Peter and El followed him. Neal's winter home was in one of his preferred locations, a shallow rock shelter where he'd already built a wall of woven branches, thatched with moss, to keep out the winter wind. The shelter was, of course, decorated with his paintings -- those from past years were nearly obliterated by weather, overlapped by more current depictions of animals, birds, and a few people.

"Look," Neal said, and pointed up. "It's still there."

One thing Neal liked to have them do was handmark his walls. And their handprints from last year were still clearly visible: Peter's big one, El's small one, and Neal's intermediate between the two.

Peter grinned and dropped his bundle in a corner. Eventually he and El would need to find a place to set up housekeeping for the winter -- Neal's rock shelter really wasn't big enough for three, at least not for the entire winter. But in the meantime, it was good to be home.

**Author's Note:**

> Cave paintings like the ones at [Lascaux](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux) and [Chauvet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave) are (justifiably) famous, but some archaeologists believe that the deep cave paintings are merely a fraction of the art that once existed. There may once have been many Paleolithic paintings on surfaces that were exposed to the elements and obliterated in the intervening millennia, leaving no trace today.


End file.
